Wichita Eagle Bike-Friendly articles – 03-04-18
We all know biking around Wichita is improving thanks to the efforts of our residents, community partners, and City leaders. Check out the great articles published in Sunday’s Wichita Eagle newspaper. Of course more changes are needed, but efforts are rolling…so jump on board to help transform our city into a more biking and pedestrian friendly community! Your voice & energy make a difference. Sign up to volunteer or join us around town.
This is very encouraging to read. Wichita is slowly (but surely) changing to a more bicycling and walking tolerant city! I was glad to see the work being done on the east side of the Arkansas River! I’ve ridden that on my mountain bike a number of times, and always thought more people could ride there IF the surface was less “challenging'” to the non-off-road bike rider. However, there are other, non-paved, definitely ‘off-road’ areas all along the length of our river corridor that could be made into in-city, non-paved bicycling opportunities for the mountain bikers in the city. Plus, by injecting an increase of such wheeled traffic into those locations, the incidence of home-less encampments, that seem to gravitate to little-used areas like that, would be less likely, and it would provide opportunities to ride off-road without having to load up a car and drive to do that! That would help the over-all air quality of the city. Thanks!!
YES! We agree and would love to see access extended, including along the Big Ditch. Happy riding!
One more thing—last Saturday (3/3/18) I was in Lawrence, Kansas, and rode their Lawrence River Trail, and I was greatly impressed not just by the trails there, but by how many people were the using them; for walking with family; with dogs; running; and mountain biking, and everyone seemed to be getting along just fine and paying attention to other users and being respectful. Along with the single-track dirt trails, they’ve developed an extensive ‘linear trail’ on top of the flood control dikes. Wichita could easily create such varied trails for use by a broad range of people. We have the dikes, and some rather interesting forested sections for single-track trail installation. The residents of Lawrence seem to use their trails to a considerable degree. (The trail head there Saturday was packed!) Plus, more than a few users Saturday said they drove from other nearby towns and communities to use their trail systems! We could certainly benefit here as well by better utilizing what we already have here, as they have done. Thanks!!